The Lord Your Provider 3

“In the same way, a husband should love his wife as much as he loves himself. A husband who loves his wife shows that he loves himself. None of us hate our own bodies. We provide for them and take good care of them, just as Christ does for the church” Ephesians 28-29. (Emphasis added)

God who provides for His people is the Lord Jesus Christ. Of Christ, John the Baptist said, “…the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” All the blessings recorded in the New Testament to God’s people come through the Lamb of God, which takes away their sin. Sin is the reason Christ came, which is why sin should never be excused for some Freudian psychoanalysis of a socially derived childhood condition.

In a fallen world where sin is not recognized as the problem, Christ is not seen as the answer. When Christ loved the church, He gave Himself for it, so that, “…he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word…” These terms signify Christ dealing with sin to provide and love the church best.

As the man provides for his own body, he is to care for his wife, which is a reflection of how Christ provided for the church out of sacrificial love and devotion equal to self-interest. All that Christ now provides He does through the sacrifice of Himself at Calvary, where His substitution for sin was accomplished.

All the love the Christian receives from Christ in his physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, and social condition is received through the work Christ accomplished on the cross.